• by January 26, 2001

The Internet ratings report for the week ending January 21 from Nielsen//NetRatings shows that online surfers at home are getting an early start for the upcoming tax season, as traffic to Intuit's group of websites and IRS.gov spiked this past week.

"Applications like Intuit's user-friendly Internet-based tax filing systems are the ones that will drive users and continued usage of the Web," said Allen Weiner, VP of analytical services at NetRatings.

"Filing online illustrates one of the Web's most enduring value propositions of saving time. Not to be overlooked is the access to tax information and filing forms the IRS provides from its website."

Traffic to financial software provider, Intuit.com, nearly doubled to 608,000 unique visitors during the week ending January 21, compared to 315,000 for the previous week. Total unique visitors to Shopintuit.com jumped 71% to 217,000. Traffic to Turbotax.com grew 58% to 266,000 unique visitors.

IRS.gov's traffic surged 57% to 551,000 unique visitors for the week. Surfers spent an average of 12 minutes at the site, with most visitors logging on to the download page for new tax forms.